


Prey

by nessbess



Series: Werewolves of Chicago [7]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Werewolf!Ian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:44:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1888878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessbess/pseuds/nessbess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mickey knew that he was probably overreacting. Ian was a werewolf, on top of all of his army ninja shit and inherent South Side scrappiness. There wasn't much out there that could get the jump on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prey

'Worried' didn't even begin to cover the feeling churning within Mickey's gut. An apocalyptic-scale anxiety would be more accurate.

It had now been five hours since anyone had seen Ian. Mickey pulled out his phone, thumb hovering over Ian's speed dial - so he didn't completely hate the kid, he was allowed to have him on speed dial, fuck you - before hurling his phone across the room with a curse, leaving behind a sizable dent in the wall. 

What good would one more call do after the twelve messages he'd already left the redhead?

Mickey knew that he was probably overreacting. Ian was a werewolf, on top of all of his army ninja shit and inherent South Side scrappiness. There wasn't much out there that could get the jump on him. Yet, he couldn't stop the antsy jittering of his leg as he watched the seconds hand continue its marathon around the clock face. Ian had never been so late coming home from work before. Not without calling with an explanation. Mickey had already dropped by the FairyTail in Boystown - Ian's boss had said that it was a normal night, that Ian had left alone at the end of his shift as he did every night that Mickey wasn't there.

"Fuck," Mickey wiped at his mouth with the palm of his hand before padding across the room to retrieve his phone. He hesitated, wondering for a split second if he was being too needy, if maybe Ian just needed a little space, before his eyes flicked back to the clock. He thumbed the speed dial. 

The phone rang eight times before the familiar message sounded -  _"Hey. You reached Ian. Leave a message or something."_  Mickey hung up with a curse, indecisively scratching at his nose with a blunt fingernail before he redialed. 

"Hey, asshole," he began as soon as the answering machine shut up, "Think you can pull your dick out of whatever fossil you found this time long enough to send me a text or whatever so I know you're not laying in a ditch or something? Fuck man, just - just call me, yeah?" He hung up and fired off a quick text -  _where the fuck r u???_ \- and paused, tapping his phone against his lower lip twice before shoving it back into his pocket. 

The clock mocked him with its hollow ticking as the hands slowly crept towards the six-hour mark. Mickey tasted blood as he gnawed at the skin beside his thumbnail. He should have been there last night. He should have ditched work - let the whores fend for themselves. Ian was more important. He didn't want to believe that, after everything, Ian would just run off with someone else, but the alternative - him being trapped or hurt or... It was more than Mickey could bear to think about. If Ian wanted to fuck someone else, fine. Maybe he was just having a relapse and needed to shove it into someone over sixty years old to appease the craving. It wasn't like they'd defined whatever this was as exclusive or anything. Just as long as he was okay.

Mickey rubbed his eyes hard with the heels of his hands, forcefully shoving the tears back into his eyes so that he could keep his illusion, pretending he wasn't terrified. He hated the faggoty turn his thoughts always seemed to take when Ian was on his mind. 

Just as long as Ian was okay.

Everything else could be fixed later.

Just as long as he was alive.

When the clock mockingly chimed at 7am, Mickey shoved away from the table, his chair scraping loudly against the abused floor, and headed down the street at a fast clip. 

Scratching groggily at his scalp, Lip opened the door and wordlessly let Mickey inside. "Still nothing?" he asked on the tail of a yawn, offering Mickey a mug of coffee. 

"No sign of him, no leads," Mickey agreed as he gulped down the coffee, scalding his tongue and the inside of his throat.

"Look," Lip began complacently, slathering slices of bread with mayonnaise, "Ian does this all the time. He starts feeling suffocated or like he just needs some time - he'll take off for a few days, then come wandering back like nothing happened," he shrugged.

"He's feeling suffocated," Mickey repeated disbelievingly. He snorted a messy laugh that made Lip grimace. "Not fuckin' likely."

"Whatever, man," Lip brushed him off. "Just don't stress it. Ian's always been a free spirit, he'll come back soon enough."

Mickey chewed at his lip, trying to bit back his anger. "He's not a fucking dog," he ground out, determinedly ignoring the irony of the statement. "He might leave  _you_ all the time, but he wouldn't just run away from  _me_. Not without telling me."

"And maybe that belief, right there, is the reason he had to go," Lip said cheerfully.

Mickey's eyebrows flew towards his hairline and he rubbed at his nose, chewing at his lips before a harsh laugh slipped between them. "I thought you were supposed to be a goddamned genius," he sneered, invading Lip's space and jabbing a sharp finger into his chest. "Something's happened to him and it wasn't fuckin' me. If his family gave as much a shit about him as he gives about them, maybe we would have been able to find him by now. Maybe he would have never left for the army and then he'd never have -" He stepped back, breathing heavily through Ian's nose before he could reveal Ian's secrets. "Too bad he was stuck with shitheads like you who don't give a fuck what happens to him." Mickey shook his head in disgust, eyeing Lip before he turned to leave. "I don't have time for this shit," he growled.

"What about Ian?" another voice, rough with the fluctuations of puberty, asked from the top of the stairs as Mickey's hand landed on the doorknob. Pausing, he turned to regard Ian's other brother. The psycho one.

"Go get ready for school, bud," Lip said at the same moment Mickey asked, "You seen 'im?"

The kid ignored his brother, eyes fixed on Mickey. "Thought he was with you."

Mickey thumbed his lip. "Nah," he said. "He disappeared after work last night. Nobody's seen him since."

"I can help you find him," the kid offered with a shrug.

"Carl. School," Lip ordered, but the kid - Carl - ignored him again.

"I mean, I've gotten pretty good at tracking and stuff," Carl said earnestly. "You know, just in case."

Mickey's eyebrows rose of their own volition. "...you learned how to track specific people - in Chicago, where thousands of people walk around every day - 'just in case'," he repeated dubiously.  _  
_

" 'Course," Carl said, eyeing Mickey as if he suspected Mickey had less brain cells than a flea. "For when a zombie apocalypse sends us back to the dark ages."

Mickey blinked. "Of course." You can't argue with crazy, he decided.

In the kitchen, Lip's head dropped onto the countertop with a solid  _thunk_. "If you get arrested for missing too much school, I am not bailing you out," he warned his brother, stuffing sandwiches into paper bags. 

An hour later saw Carl Junior-Sociopath-And-Tracker-Extraordinaire Gallagher and Mickey Seriously-Questioning-His-Life-Choices Milkovich crouched over the pavement behind the FairyTail. 

"He definitely came this way," Carl muttered, shuffling down the alley with his nose to the ground. He stabbed at random specks on the concrete. "See? There were three others with him, two men and a woman. He was half-dragged. Drugged, I'd say. Not enough to make him lose consciousness, but just enough to make him compliant."

Mickey pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the colossal headache he could feel building in his sinuses. "How the fuck can you tell?" he snapped. He could feel panic flaring once again at the easy way Carl suggested Ian was in serious trouble.

"I know my own brother's footprints!" defended Carl.

"Fucking  _Christ_ ," Mickey burst, shouting his exasperation to the heavens. "It's fucking  _concrete_! There  _are_ no goddamned footprints! There's nothing - no blood, no discarded cheeseburger wrappers. There's barely even any gum or cigarette butts! There's no fucking way you can tell what happened to Ian or where he went from staring at pieces of rock in the sidewalk!"

Unimpressed, Carl stared back at him. "You done?" he deadpanned, not waiting for an answer before pointing down the alley. "They took him that way."

Pacing in a circle, Mickey pinched at the bridge of his nose, willfully ignoring the hot tears of desperation he could feel building at the back of his throat. Ian had been missing for eight hours. Who knew where he was - what he was doing.

Mickey fisted his hands in his hair.  _Please let him have gone home with some antique cum-guzzler. Please let him be okay_. He didn't have fucking time to be chasing Ian's fucking mental little brother's harebrained schemes. He didn't have time to poke at invisible footprints and get himself lost in back alleyways chasing mythical leads.

But he didn't have any solid leads, either.

Mickey huffed a sigh, fumbling to light a cigarette before he gestured for Carl to lead the way.

"Hey, can I have one?" the kid eyed his smoke with eyes wide as saucers.

"No, you can't fucking -" Mickey batted Carl's reaching hand out of the way. He relented with a sigh. "Look, we find your brother and I'll give you a joint." He pointed sternly at the kid, "You'd better not fuckin' tell him, though!"

Carl rolled his eyes. "It's not like I've never had a smoke before, asshole," he growled, but started off down the street.

Mickey took a long drag from his fag, feeling the nicotine try to calm his jittering. "But if we don't find him, I will give you the worst fuckin' wedgie of your pubescent balls' life," he threatened before trailing after the kid.

Anxiety ate at Mickey's innards as he followed Carl through the streets of Chicago. He had never before realized just how massive the city was, yet he could only hope that Ian hadn't left the city. That, and that he wasn't simply being led on a wild goose chase as Carl squinted at the pavement and followed leads that only he could see.

They walked together for what seemed like hours before finally stopping before a huge, abandoned cathedral on the outskirts of the West Side. 

The stone walls were covered in decades of grime and graffiti, crumbling under the wear of time as weeds and trees popped out of the walls in odd places. Mickey tried to peer through the cracks of a boarded up window, but couldn't make out anything in the darkness within. 

"You sure he's in there?"

"Yep," Carl confirmed, bouncing on the balls of his toes. "With three others, one chick and two dudes."

Mickey raised his eyebrow, but said nothing. He gave a short nod, pulling the gun from the waistband of his jeans and thumbing the safety.

"I'm ready!" Carl proclaimed in a stage whisper as he pulled a small pistol from his belt and rucked up the leg of his pants to brandish a military-grade knife that Mickey was certain he'd seen Ian sharpening at one point or another.

"What the fuck?"

"Zombie apocalypse," Carl rolled his eyes. "Always prepared."

Mickey eyed the gun doubtfully. "How good a shot are you?"

"Shot a bald eagle in the head, once," the kid cheerfully replied.

Mickey kind of wished that he was the praying kind. Some divine intervention would be really fucking great right now. He pinched the bridge of his nose. 

"Look, kid, you're staying here. Ian will kill me if I get you involved in this shit."

"I'm not a kid," Carl snapped back, "and they'll kill Ian if I  _don't_ get involved in this shit. You need backup and I don't see anyone else volunteering.

Groaning, Mickey rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, mindful of the gun. "Fine," he snapped, not wanting to waste more time arguing with the kid. He ignored Carl's whooping air-punch of triumph. "Listen, you're smart. You've got the Gallagher brains and the South Side instinct. I need you to cover my back and don't give away your position if you don't have to. Capisce?"

Carl set his jaw and stared sullenly back at Mickey. The older boy's heart gave a painful twist, the expression one he had seen on a different Gallagher's face many times. If they didn't find Ian and bring him home... Mickey didn't know what he would do. The fucker had clawed his way under his skin.

"Good," he said with a decisive snort, choosing to take the kid's silence as agreement. "Now come on."

~*~

Every part of Ian ached.

He was naked, barring his golden booty shorts, and strung in an X-shape across a chain-link fence. His wrists, ankles and neck were tied to the fence with a rope of delicate-looking purple flowers that burned like a hot brand against his bare skin, rubbing it raw until it was cracking and bleeding. His feet dangled helplessly above the crumbling marble floor and his head pounded with the aftermaths of whatever it was they had drugged him with. 

He snarled at his three captors, wordlessly daring them to untie him, to see how easy a prey they would find him without all of their fancy herbs and chains. 

Instead of rising to his challenge, the woman simply regarded him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, her eyes dancing appreciatively over his sweaty, mostly naked frame. "Don't be like that, pup," she pouted, reaching out to stroke the back of one slim finger down his cheek.

Elongated teeth bared, he snapped at her hand. She only moved her hand out of his reach with a delighted laugh. She rested it against his lower stomach, teasing at the waistband of his shorts.

"Come now, love," she said in a soothing tone as she lightly pet across his abs. "Don't be grumpy. Remember that you alone have the power to make all of this stop. Just tell us - where is the alpha?"

The muscles of Ian's stomach seized in a violent twitch as he tried to squirm away from her questing hand with nowhere to go. The movement only made her grin. "I don't know where he is," Ian bit out. "We didn't exactly exchange email addresses before he drugged me and vanished."

"Tell me his name," her voice lost all illusion of warmth as she slipped her hand into his shorts fingers wrapping around his flaccid cock and squeezing hard.

Ian jolted at the touch, his hips bucking away from her and grinding into the fence in an effort to escape the violation. Her hand followed him easily, and something inside of him snapped. He roared, the sound loud and primal, spittle flying from his jaws as his eyes gleamed blue.

The shorter man blanched, he squeak of fear barely audible even to Ian's superior senses. The others, however, where unfazed. The woman stepped back and cast a pointed glance at the tall, dark-haired man standing just beyond Ian's line of sight.

Ian tensed in anticipation, biting down on his cheek to keep from crying out as the man touched his cattle prod of the fence. His body seized and jerked as electricity coursed through the links, searing across his back. The smell of charred meat once more filled the air as the taste of blood flooded his mouth.

Tremors continued to wrack his body for several minutes after the man pulled away the cattle prod. When they finally abated, he spat out a mouthful of blood.

"He's a strong one," said the short, balding man.

"He's young," the woman countered. "And an omega. His strength is all a show. He has no alpha, no pack to draw on." She shook her head, a mild disgust painting her features. "Kill him."

Ian clenched his hand into fists, pulling himself up for one last attempt to escape. He had known this was coming - known that, even if he had all of the answers they were looking for, these people would never let him leave this place alive. He only wished - 

As the woman's partners drew their guns, Ian caught a familiar scent. Where should have been the sounds of two guns clicking, there were four. 

"The fuck makes you think he has no pack?" Mickey drawled lazily as he strolled in. One of his hands was tucked into his pocket, the other casually holding a gun by his side. He was a picture of perfect ease, and Ian knew that he was the only one who could see the coils of tension beneath the thug's skin.

Mickey was in his element - drug and firearm deals gone wrong and confrontations with the Roselli gang were his par for the course, and Ian instantly felt himself relax. He only wondered who Mickey's backup was. He couldn't imagine Mickey bringing one of the brothers Milkovich into this kind of a situation - it struck too close to the heart and to secrets best left undiscovered. He could hear Mickey's partner shifting in the balcony, but he couldn't catch a scent. 

While Ian had been musing over his illusive partner, Mickey had wasted no time. Years of practice had taught him that in a gunfight, it was best to make the first move. Even if your opponents had a few tricks up their sleeves, oncoming bullets could distract them. Too slow, and you were a deadman. Mickey brought his gun up in a flash and, pausing only a moment to aim, buried three rounds in the woman's chest. She made a startled gasp before falling to the ground, breaths gurgling through the blood that filled her throat. Her hands twitched, but she had lost the strength to reach for a gun and Mickey paid her no more heed.

The sound of the gunshots seemed to pull her two companions out of their startled stupors, and they dove behind half-rotted pews, the taller man grabbing the cattle prod as he rolled. Mickey backed towards Ian, pulling a knife - that looked suspiciously similar to Ian's old favourite - from his belt as he moved.

From the balcony, sporadic bullets rained down into the pews where the two men were hidden, forcing them to keep their heads down and out of sight. The shots came one at a time, from different angles, as if the shooter were constantly on the move. 

Mickey went to Ian's side, knife hacking at the purple flowers binding his neck to the fence. He winced, gently tracing his fingers over the raw, bloodied and blackened flesh, before he moved on to the bindings at Ian's ankles and wrists. He helped ease Ian to the ground, mindful of the burns that covered his back. Ian's breath caught at the tenderness in Mickey's gaze, dark with fear and relief and emotions Ian was afraid to put a name to, afraid that he was imagining a depth that wasn't there. A thumb traced gently over Ian's lower lip before Mickey was pulling away, raising his gun and giving Ian a warning glare. 

"Don't you dare move, Gallagher, I swear..." he trailed off, letting the threat stand. 

Ian huffed a tired laugh. He doubted he could find the energy to move, even if the building were falling down around them.

Mickey eyed him for a moment longer, indecision clouding his gaze before it hardened to determination. 

"You've got to be the most disorganized group of hunters this world has ever seen," he taunted as he strolled over to the pews, gun raised. "What were you hoping - capture some random wolf off the streets on the chance he happens to lead you to some big shot so you can make a name for yourselves?" Mickey scoffed, walking down the rows of rotting pews, casually glancing down each one as he passed. The shots from the balcony had ceased. "And then what - you can't even stand against a human. How the fuck were you planning on taking down an alpha?"

"It's against the Code to kill a human!" one of the hunters protested indignantly.

" _Pirates of the Caribbean_ already established that Codes don't mean shit," Mickey snorted, before peering over the back of the pew where the voice had come from. "Hello," he said with a bright grin. 

The taller man lunged with a yell, wielding his cattle prod like a staff. Mickey squeezed the trigger once, then again. The blasts were echoed by the dull thumps of two bodies falling to the ground.

When Mickey returned to Ian's side, he found Carl already there.

"What the fuck, Mickey?" Ian scowled. "Why the hell did you bring Carl here?"

"You're welcome," Mickey said dryly. 

Ian's angry rebuttal was cut off when Carl crowed, "Why didn't you tell me you were a werewolf?!" He poked at Ian's quickly healing wounds. " _Awe_ some!"

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. This part was a nightmare. It was plagued with writer's block after block after block and I almost scrapped it six different times until Killer Carl swanned in like "Dude, it is a-ok if I don't make a lick of scientific sense, because I dunno if you missed it, but my favourite bro's a werewolf." And Mickey was like "Alright man, whatever." So this happened. Still not pleased with it, but it wasn't going to get any better. So. (I figure Carl is some kind of spark, because why not; Teen Wolf crossover of sorts, here.)
> 
> This series is probs going to end up as a nice, round 10 parts. There are more wolfy cuddles to come, which should please most of you if the responses I've been receiving are anything to go by. Hopefully the next parts won't take as long as this one did (This part was the hurt, next is the comfort).


End file.
